The Very Efficient Carpenter: Basic Framing for Residential Construction

By Larry Haun

Book Overview

Here's your chance to become a more efficient carpenter. Larry Haun has been a production framer for more than 35 years and a teacher of apprentices for more than 20. In this book, Haun shows you, step by step, all the techniques he uses to frame a basic house, from laying down the sills to cutting the rafters. You'll learn about:

cutting and installing posts and girders joisting and sheathing fluently laying out, cutting, assembling, and raising walls framing gable roofs, hips and valleys, and truss roofs building various types of stairs

There is an opening chapter on tools, plans, codes, permits, lumber, and materials, and additional information throughout the book on safety and site-built tools. The Very Efficient Carpenter is no less than a complete course in basic framing.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 156158049X
• ISBN13: 9781561580491
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: Taunton Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Awsome book for the novice wanting to learn to Frame

I am doing an addition and wanted to frame it my self, knew a little about framing but not enough. Great book on the way to frame and how to build walls. highly recomended. There is a video that goes with this book buy it also. I went back and referenced both the book and the video through out the framing of our addition.

Larry Haun hit the nail on the head

This book has all the tricks and short cuts I learnd as a framing carpenter in southern California. Now as a framing contractor in Sedona AZ. It is required reading for all my carpenters. Thank you Larry Haun. sincerly Kirk Leach. Kirk Leach Framing & Trim INC.

It's a systems approach

I bought the book and (then) tapes to educate my family and myself in framing methods so we could build our proposed 3800 sft house as a family. I was not new to the construction industry, having worked in the past as an Architect (unlicensed:), a remodeling contractor, and construction supervisor. I had even acted as the general contractor on my own house. However, I had never started and completed a house from the ground up built by my own hands. We built our house the Larry way right down to the purchase of a framing saw. (My children still call it the Larry saw.) Although our house was *considerably* more complex than the house in the videos, the techniques illustrated worked just as well. In the end, our drywall contractor commented on how straight and square the framing was. He never complained about the out of sequence studs, and I've never had any difficulty finding one to hang a picture or whatever. And frankly, as I put my Architect's hat back on, it just looks better. I like the re-layout technique. But the most important contribution from Larry was his systems approach. One might believe that all framers use such an approach, but from my experience that's generally not the case and a trip about any construction site can prove that true. I was able to directly compare our work with the work of the carpenter contractor who framed our then current house seven years earlier and the pro was the one found wanting... The fact that an forty something man and a 15 year old boy were able to do a professional framing job using some basic skills and Larry's techniques are a testament to his (complete) thought process. I was and am impressed. I originally bought several hundred dollars worth of framing books of which this was one (a non-material expense in a $100K+ project), and read them all. But in the end, Larry really was the only one that relied on a systematic approach to the process and was the most helpful, not because he taught us how do to things, but that he taught us *what* do do in a simple orderly set of steps from begining to end. And in the end, you don't have to be a genius, or even a skilled carpenter. You just need to know what to do next.

Outstanding reference and guide

This book fills an important gap; it's neither too basic nor is it a structural or architectural engineering text book. I would recommend this book to anyone who's interested in remodelling or building by themselves, or even just curious about how their house is put together. This book does such a good job documenting and explaining the framing process that I would also highly recommend it to anyone who's having a house built.